Biden’s Son Beau Running for Governor in Delaware

Greg Giroux

April 17, 2014 — 1:15 PM EDT

It’s official: a Delaware Democrat carrying the Biden name will seek a top office in 2016.

Beau Biden, Delaware’s Democratic attorney general and Vice President Joe Biden’s oldest child, plans to run for governor in 2016 and won’t seek re-election to his current post, the younger Biden announced today.

“Over the past few months, as I’ve been planning to run for re-election, I have also been giving a great deal of thought to running for governor in 2016,” Biden said. “What started as a thought -- a very persistent thought -- has now become a course of action that I wish to pursue.”

The attorney general added that “it is not right” to ask for voters’ support for re-election this year, “knowing that my focus would be divided between doing my job” and running for governor in 2016.

Democratic Governor Jack Markell can’t seek a third term in 2016 under the state constitution.

Biden, 45, has weighed running for higher office before. In 2010, he considered running for the U.S. Senate seat his father held for decades and vacated after Democrats won the White House on a ticket led by President Barack Obama.

That would have presented a marquee matchup between Biden and Republican Representative Michael Castle, a respected political figure in the state. Then Biden declined to run, and Castle unexpectedly lost a party primary contest to Christine O’Donnell, who went on to lose the general election to Democrat Chris Coons, elected to the Senate in a landslide.